The second edition of the Big Billion Sale is expected to offer better deals and discounts offered last year. That is probably why Flipkart has decided to run the sale for 5 whole days-from 13 to 17 October. A big change this time is that the sale will be exclusively on the Flipkart app. Expect deals across all categories with added offers and cashback schemes from various banks. We recommend you install the app, create or sign-in to your account and save your address for delivery.BENGALURU: Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the poster boys of Indian ecommerce, are brazenly betting on so-called moonshot ideas, backing early-stage technology companies working in areas such as healthcare and otherwise struggling to raise money from traditional investors.

The latest such company the Flipkart cofounders have backed is Pandorum Technologies, which has found a way to 3D-print experimental-stage human liver tissues in a laboratory. The two Bansals are also finalising another investment in a startup that makes implants, which would mark their fourth funding deal into a healthcare startup.

Overall, one-fourth of the two dozen or so companies in their combined investment portfolios are working on similar deep technology ideas, making the Bansals a rare breed of investors not averse to taking risky bets that can spur truly disruptive innovation.

His observation bears out in the numbers. Of the 30 early-stage capital-raising deals struck by healthcare startups since 2014, half were in the form of government grants, according to startup data tracker Tracxn. On the other hand, in the same period, 1,166 consumer internet startups managed to raise seed and angel funding.

Industry experts concede it’s tough for such deep technology ventures to secure funding. “It is not very easy because you need to understand more of technology when you (want to invest in) deeptech healthcare and robotics,” said Shanti Mohan, founder of Let’sVenture, one of India’s largest funding platforms for startups.

For potential investors not familiar with such technology, it becomes difficult to grasp the end uses of the products these startups are developing.

ISSUE WITH TISSUES Binny Bansal describes Pandorum as something “out of science fiction.” Founded in 2011 by Arun Chandru and Tuhin Bhowmick, who were both research scholars at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, Pandorum designs and manufactures functional human tissues intended for medical research.

The team, in 2015, engineered an artificial tissue that mimics the functions of the human liver, the first such by an Indian entity.

“We were focusing on liver tissues. We have now started bio-engineering of cornea along with a leading eye hospital in India,” said Chandru.

The Bansals invested an undisclosed sum in the Bengaluru-based startup earlier this year. Until now, Pandorum has been dependent on grants from the government funding agency Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, which makes for a longer process than securing equity funding.

RIDING ON POTENTIAL Some of the personal investments by the Bansals have been made purely on the basis of a startup’s potential.

Electric bike maker Ather Energy’s chief executive Tarun Mehta met Sachin Bansal in 2014 to ask if he would put in $500,000 of the $1million the company was seeking to raise.

Ather had developed only a basic prototype of the scooter at the time but that didn’t deter Bansal. He considered Mehta’s request for a few seconds, smiled and said it would be great if he could put in the entire $1million.

“He had a lot of conviction in what we were doing. Many in his place would not have invested if an entrepreneur were to start by saying that we are having trouble fundraising,” said Mehta, whose startup recently roped in India’s largest two-wheeler maker, Hero MotoCorp, as an investor and is now valued at above $100 million. Ather is presently setting up a manufacturing unit in Bengaluru.

ROPING IN TSAI SHEN As the Bansals’ portfolio has grown, they have formalised their investment process and are working with Tsai Shen Capital, a multi-family office and investment firm set up by Sailesh Tulshan, a former wealth manager with Client Associates and HDFC Bank. Tsai Shen also works with the portfolio companies on their future fundraising, among other things.

While the Bansals almost always co-invest, one of them typically leads a funding round as their interests vary. “We have different personal philosophies,” said Binny Bansal. While Sachin Bansal is more interested in futuristic startups working on things like artificial intelligence, Binny Bansal said he is more focused on areas like healthcare.

It’s not as if they have not invested in consumer internet companies or that all their investments have been successful.

Some of their early investments included hyper-local electronics seller Zopper and social shopping network Roposo, which they had to sell because of a conflict of interest with Flipkart. Their investment in former Housing.com CEO Rahul Yadav’s second startup, Intelligent Interfaces, was also a dud. The company, in which the Bansals invested at $30-million valuation, shut within six months of launch.

Binny Bansal is not fazed by such failures. “For us the risk appetite is very high,” he said, “because I look at it as giving back.”

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